Roughly one year and a half ago I ended a short conversation with my parents. I had decided to leave my Information Systems course in one of Brazil's most prestigious universities, University of São Paulo, and go to Amsterdam seeking to dive into the world's center for legal psychedelics.
My journey in Brazil before I came here had reached a plateau. It became impossible to improve professionally in this area without being the target of prejudice or agents of the law. I could invest in illegal ventures, but I don't feel ashamed of my work and I feel that I should speak and work freely in the sun light.
I had personal experiences with psychedelics, but not may, as I felt that the few experiences that I had growing up took years to be digested and implemented. Maybe I'm still incorporating them.
I also had a short run with the charisma community, but I felt that the online community was too focused in finding quick sexual encounters, which I'm not particularly interested in.
Two months after ending the conversation with my parents I was in Holland living in Rotterdam and successfully found a job. I got contact with a serious businessman that had interest in hiring someone who had experience with psychedelic experiences, had charismatic traits and could sell the products with responsibility and care for the costumers. This was one year ago. Now I'm heading to my last month working in this store and this is what I learned:
1- How did I get a job in the first place?
A couple years ago I received the right to use the Italian Passaport. With this document I'm allowed to live and work in any country of Europe. As soon as I got in Holland I didn't had any money to spend, I had to absolutely find a job quickly or go back to Brazil empty handed. Quickly I send emails to most places that interested me at the time. I had only been to Amsterdam once before this first search, so I found emails of companies just by searching for coffeeshops (sell cannabis) and smartshops (other substances, except cannabis) and saying a little of who I was, what I was interested in and what kind of work I was looking for, it was a bit like this:
Hi,
My name is Alexandre, I'm 24 years old, and I admire your work. My main area of interest is psychedelics and for years in my homeland, Brazil, I participated and conducted several rituals with natural substances. I believe that these rituals can be translated to ordinary urban life. I think that it's possible to successfully integrate these natural tools to get advantage in a highly competitive environment.
I am very comfortable talking about psychedelics and have plenty of practice talking with first timers. I think that I can share a lot of value to your work, can we talk more?
Best regards,
Alexandre
The emails followed this line and after it I wrote a classic resume telling basically the same things but with a more elegant format.
After one week I got a response from a high end smartshop. A small corner shop that has been in the same spot with the same owner for the last 20 years. Upon my first visit the store impressed me. It was small, enough to fit 4 people comfortably, but no more. The products were presented as jewelry of the highest caliber. The 5 types of truffles were exposed in golden square plates and each type, ranking from lightest to toughest, had it's dedicated light for every tourist and native to see.
The truffles that they offered were not vacuum sealed as the other ones. Each piece of the truffle looked spectacular in comparison with the other brands, all the pieces were huge and full of mold, indicating a healthy fungus.
My first interview was straight forward, I had to test myself in real time and then I'll discover if I made the team.
I went to work day after day and It became easier and easier. The posture of indicating the way instead of taking the person by the hand is very important when selling these kind of product. Because I don't know what kind of experience a person is going have, I have to be prepared to use my charisma to discourage the client to take a very strong substance that could give an unpleasant experience.
Keep in mind that the experience of the shop ends with the end of the psychedelic experience. So ideally we need to bring to our costumers a very valuable experience with hard challenges for those who seek hard challenges and easy challenges for those who aren't interested in being challenged.
For the costumer that comes over the counter and says that they are experimenting the magic truffles for the first time ever, it's important that the first impression that they have is that you think the magic truffles are a GREAT idea for the first time. In the specific case of the smartshop I worked in of the five types (Ganlindoii, Dragon, Atlantis, Tampanensis, Mexicana), the Mexicana, Tampanensis and Atlantis are very good for the first time. These truffles are usually quiet and very focused in the world outside, with just very light hallucinations.
For the experienced user it's important to show that the easiest truffles are very powerful still, just more social and more gentle personality. Maybe for someone experienced it'd might be better to go for the easiest ones, but a higher dose. A lot of times the costumer that return to try another type of truffle go for the Dragon or Galindoii. These two are filled with hallucinations and bring a very intense and busy experience. Not very comfortable for the first time, because it can be very surprising for some people.
A technique that I find useful is to guide the conversation after a costumer returns is to guide the conversations to the drugs that I know and a lot of times I have other substances that fit better the interests of the client. For example I can offer a plant that smoked gives results similar to mushrooms (Salvia Divinorum). Or Hawaiian Baby Woodrose, it's another product that many people are interested because it's legal most places (easier to bring home than truffles) and because LSA (contained in the seeds of Hawaiian Baby woodrose) bring a religious ego-free experience that many people are looking for.
When a client is describing a experience that he or she had, it's important that you listen with presence of sprit without assuming that a experience was good or bad. It's better to ask all times. "Wait, was this experience you are describing good or bad for you?". Many times I laughed at people's bad trip. This is a no-no. A bad trip during a psychedelic trip does not seems like a joke for the people who experienced it.
I learned to describe my experiences based on literal description of how I felt. "With the Mexicana the pupils dilate and I had the deep undestanding that I was living a fairy tale, or a movie. It felt like I was in a story that had beginning, middle and end. Fantastic Truffle."
This is my last month working in the shop. I hope I can bring more value to you all in the future.
If you have any questions or would like to have further discussions, please don't hesitate to contact me.